1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system and method for on-line diagnostics of industrial equipment.
2. Background Art
Industrial equipment, such as manufacturing apparatus, inspection apparatus, and analysis apparatus, is delivered to clients via industrial-equipment suppliers (to be hereafter referred to as equipment supplier/vendors) after it is manufactured by manufactures. Maintenance of such equipment after delivery is indispensable in order to maintain its performance.
Conventionally, industrial equipment, such as those mentioned above, is connected to a maintenance center of an equipment supplier/vendor via the Internet, so that the industrial equipment can be maintained remotely from the maintenance center. JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 11-15520 A (1999) proposes an on-line diagnostics system using the Internet. The system allows industrial equipment to be maintained no matter where it is located.
Items of industrial equipment with a built-in computer can store equipment information about the history of their use on an individual item basis. Such equipment information is very valuable from the viewpoint of maintenance, for it can be used in determining the cause of troubles. For instance, if one can refer to equipment information that indicates what kind of program was run and when it was run, how the state of each part of the industrial equipment transitioned, and what processing results were obtained, one can expect to be able to determine whether the cause of a trouble is in the contents of the program, in the sequence of execution of the program, or in a particular location of an apparatus, or whether the processing results are desirable.
However, equipment information has rarely been disclosed to maintenance personnel at the maintenance center via the Internet, which a third party can readily access, because in many cases equipment information includes confidential information about the manufacturing plan of products manufactured by the industrial equipment or the products' specifications. As a result, it has been often difficult to cope with troubles quickly.
Accordingly, how to manage equipment information safely and utilize it for maintenance in Internet-based on-line diagnostics systems has been an important issue. However, the on-line diagnostics system disclosed in above-mentioned JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 11-15520 does not address the question of how to utilize equipment information in an active manner.